


Dark Cataclysm

by Akumeoi



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Character Death, Creepy, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-10 00:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7822672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/pseuds/Akumeoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrien hasn't been to school in a while...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Cataclysm

**Author's Note:**

> Papillon = Hawk Moth  
> Transforme-moi = Spots on (lit: "transform me")  
> Chat Noir = Cat Noir (duh)

"Have you heard from him? I haven’t seen him at all this week, have you?”

“No. Nino went by his house yesterday but the gate was locked and all the windows were dark.”

“They were dark? What do you think that means?”

“I don’t know, maybe he decided to take a vacation or something?”

“Marinette and Alya!” 

The teacher’s sharp voice cut through Marinette’s anxious whispers, and Marinette reluctantly turned her attention back to the front of the room.

“Tell me, does your little private conversation have anything to do with physics?” the teacher snapped. 

“I’m sorry, Madame but–” Marinette blurted out. 

“But what?”

“You don’t know where Adrien is, do you?”

The teacher sighed, folding her arms and giving a curt shake of her head. “Marinette, Adrien’s whereabouts are none of your concern. Nor do they have anything to do with this class. I suggest you save any future conversations on the subject for later, unless you’d like to visit the principal’s office today. Understood?”

“Yes, Madame.” Marinette bit her lip and looked down at her notes as the teacher took up her previous lecture again. Of course, her paper was mostly blank. There was nothing on it but a doodle in the margin of a solitary hamster. She glanced at her pencil case, where she had a pen of Adrien’s that he had dropped last Friday. It looked so lonely lying there among her coloured pencils and sketching pens. She had been hoping to return it to Adrien on Monday, but… 

_But he’s been missing for a whole week!_ Marinette thought. How could Madame possibly expect her to pay attention? Ever since Tuesday, when she learnt that Nino hadn’t heard anything from Adrien even though he had been absent for two days, Marinette had been anxious and on edge. What if Adrien was sick? What if he was hurt? 

“Psst!” Alya elbowed Marinette in the side, and she quickly looked up. Everyone in the class was looking at her, including the teacher.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?” Marinette said. The teacher frowned and opened her mouth.

“I’ll see myself out,” Marinette sighed.

(=^･ｪ･^=)

Marinette did not go to the principal’s office. Normally getting sent to the principal’s office, not to mention not going to the principal’s office after being sent there, would be cause enough for anxiety, even tears. But right now, there was nothing in the world that could make her worry more than the thought of what could be happening to Adrien right now. She didn’t know how to explain it – she just had this _really bad feeling_ , and until she could see for herself that he was okay, she wouldn’t be reassured. 

That was why her feet started automatically taking her towards Adrien’s house. 

Upon arriving, she realised that her first problem would be getting through the gate. She had pressed the call button on the gatepost, but after five minutes of no response, she knew she’d have to climb over the gate. This was a problem for Marinette, but it wouldn’t be a problem for someone else. 

Ladybug. 

Marinette opened her purse, to find Tikki peering up at her from within. 

“Tikki, I need you to transform me,” Marinette said in a low voice. To any passer-by, it would look like Marinette was talking into her purse, but she didn’t care. “I have to get inside that house. I need to see what happened to Adrien.”

Although Marinette had expected Tikki to argue, she didn’t. “I feel it too. There’s a sense of malheure around this house,” Tikki said in a hushed voice. “Go around the back so I can transform you without anyone seeing.” 

Briskly but inconspicuously, Marinette made her way around the side of Adrien’s house. As soon as she was sure of being unseen, she opened her purse again. 

“Tikki, transforme-moi!”

In less than a minute, Miraculous Ladybug was back on the streets, and she was ready to do some breaking and entering. Lasso-ing the top of one of the fence-posts with her yoyo, Marinette pulled herself up and over the fence in one fluid motion. Landing on the other side, she set about testing the windows to see if any of them were open. The one benefit of the high wall and the fence were that she could inspect the ground-floor windows with little fear of being seen. It wouldn’t do to ruin Ladybug’s reputation by letting her get caught trying to break into a rich man’s house, but Marinette had other things on her mind.

After a quick five-minute search, Marinette concluded that none of the ground-floor windows were open. Well, there was nothing for it. 

“Lucky Charm!” Marinette called, throwing her yoyo up into the air. As it dropped back to earth in a shower of fading red glitter, she held out her hand and caught – a roll of sticky tape. As usual, Marinette didn’t have the faintest idea what to do with her Lucky Charm. 

Then, she had a thought. Dropping to her knees, she prised open her backpack and pulled out the pen she had been intending to return to Adrien on Monday – the day he hadn’t shown up for class. Marinette held the pen up to the light, until she could see them – fingerprints, around the tip of the pen where Adrien had held it to write. Tearing off a little piece of clear tape with her teeth, Marinette took an impression of one of the fingerprints, then held it up to the reader beside the door. For a few brief seconds, she held her breath. Then, the light changed to green and the door clicked open.

(=^･ω･^=)

Inside, the house was dark and quiet – too quiet. The rooms were clean and neat, with barely a speck of dust floating through the air. It was so clinical, like a house prepared for the filming of a movie. There were barely any personal touches in the rooms, save for the portraits on the walls. Marinette slowly made her way from room to room, wondering why the whole house felt so cold.

Entering Adrien’s room, Marinette paused in the doorway. This room, unlike the rest of the house, looked truly lived in. There were posters on the walls – and though she felt shivers of unease crawling down her spine, Marinette still spared a moment to see what Adrien thought was important enough to pin up – as well as various things scattered about on the floor, desk, and other various surfaces. Books, schoolbooks. Some clothing, a few pairs of shoes, a dirty dish with a fork laid neatly across it on the bedside table. The bed was unmade. 

But for all it was evident that Adrien had claimed this space as his own, it still held the same eerie stillness, the same stifling aura as the rest of the house. It was as if he had gotten out of bed one morning, gone downstairs, and just never come back. Looking over the things scattered around the room, especially the empty bed, made Marinette shiver.

“Looking for something?”

The voice broke the silence like a static shock. Marinette spun around, fear clenching in her gut. For a moment, she hoped it might be Adrien who had found her – if it was Adrien, that meant everything was all right, even if she was in a whole lot of trouble, but no – it wasn’t him. It was Chat Noir. 

“Chat Noir? What are you doing here?” Marinette gasped, hand reflexively clutching over her heart. The Chat regarded her with a level stillness, eyes unreadable. An unknowable smile hovered at the edge of his lips, as if he had just now remembered something amusing that only he knew. Marinette’s sense of wrongness increased, and she shivered. 

“I could ask you the same thing,” the Chat replied, leaning against the doorframe and tilting his head back casually. Some part of Marinette that wasn’t totally creeped out by this situation thought, in an absurd way, _He’s posing!_ and she had to resist the urge to giggle. 

“I’m looking for my friend Adrien. He lives here, and I’m worried about him,” Marinette said, deciding it would be best to be direct. A thought flitted across her mind – what if this wasn’t really Chat Noir? What if it were some strange copy, like that akumatised sculptor had been? But no, there was nothing on his body that looked like it could contain an akuma.

If only his eyes weren’t gleaming so strangely. 

“Adrien, huh?” the Chat mused. “You can look for him if you like. He isn’t here.”

That was… not a normal thing to say. 

“You know what? I need to use a bathroom. Right now,” said Marinette. “Right now, okay? Where are they?”

Stepping aside from the doorway, the Chat gestured elegantly down the hallway and gave a little bow. This was a normal Chat Noir behaviour. “Down the hall and to your right,” he said smoothly. 

Marinette didn’t even ask how he knew. Brushing past him, she practically fled into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her, neither noticing nor caring how fancy the room itself was. She sat down on the floor and opened her purse, peering frantically inside. Tikki was still there. Thank goodness. 

“Tikki,” Marinette hissed. “Tikki something is wrong! Did you see Chat Noir? There’s something wrong with him! And where’s Adrien? Or Monsieur Agreste? Or anyone? I don’t know what to do!”

“Calm down, Marinette,” Tikki said in her gentle voice, coming out of the purse to float in front of Marinette. “You can’t help Adrien or Chat Noir if you’re scared like this.”

That was true. 

“I think there’s something wrong with Chat Noir,” Marinette said again. Tikki nodded, bobbing up and down a little bit. 

“I think so too. I can barely sense Plagg.”

“Plagg? Who’s that?” Marinette said.

“The kwami who transforms him into Chat Noir. He’s here, but I think he’s been hurt. Did you see Chat Noir’s Miraculous?” Tikki asked, and Marinette shook her head.

“No. Do you think it’s… broken?”

Could a Miraculous break without becoming… evil? And what would that do to the person wearing it?

“Maybe,” Tikki said worriedly. In that moment, Marinette dearly wished she could just transform into Ladybug, hit her stupid partner on the head, and carry him far away from here so she could take care of him properly. But there was still the problem of Adrien. 

“I wonder why he’s here…” Marinette said. “You don’t think… you don’t think he did something to Adrien, do you?”

Tikki sighed. For a moment she closed her eyes tiredly. It was moments like this that reminded Marinette that Tikki was really several thousand years old.

“I didn’t want to tell you, Marinette, but I think Chat Noir _is_ Adrien,” said Tikki. 

“ _What?_ ”

“I can sense a kwami around him sometimes at your school, and it feels like Plagg. Plus, haven’t you noticed, their voices sound the same?”

 _They do?_ Marinette thought. “Adrien can’t be Chat Noir...” Marinette said, but even so, her mind scrambled to come up with reasons why it was impossible. “They’re nothing alike. Adrien is sweet… and kind… and Chat Noir is… Chat Noir is… all he does is flirt!”

“Marinette, I know it’s hard, but for Adrien’s sake, you have to believe me. Besides, you know Chat Noir cares about you. Is it really so impossible?”

Sighing, Marinette put her head in her hands. “No…” she murmured, though she felt in that moment as if she were somehow giving up on something precious by admitting it. “But I still don’t know what to do.”

“Transform into Ladybug,” said Tikki urgently. “If his Miraculous is broken, we have to get it away from him right away.”

“Chat Noir – Adrien – isn’t stupid. If I come out of this bathroom as Ladybug, he’s going to know it was me.”

“That doesn’t matter now,” Tikki said. “He may forget about all of this later. The important thing is to save Plagg’s life.”

Was the situation really that dire? 

Marinette thought of Chat Noir’s impassive face. 

Yes. It was. 

One more thing. “Where do you suppose Monsieur Agreste and his secretary are?” Marinette asked. 

“I don’t know. Ask Chat Noir.”

Marintte nodded. “Okay. I got it.” Mentally, she told herself, _I can do this_. 

“Tikki, transforme-moi!”

(=^･ω･^=)

A few moments later, Marinette emerged from the bathroom, newly attired as Ladybug. Chat Noir was still in the hallway, exactly where she had left him, idly examining his own claws. As he looked up at her, casually folding his arms, Marinette caught a glimpse of his Miraculous and felt her stomach lurch. As Tikki had suspected, the ring was cracked jaggedly down the middle, splitting the paw-print in two.

 _Stick to the plan, Marinette_ , she told herself. 

The Chat grinned. “Well, my Lady. What a surprise. How nice of you to visit my humble abode.”

Oh, she was _so_ not in the mood for Chat Noir’s nonsense today, though it was reassuring that he recognised her, at least. 

“So what happened to Marinette?” the Chat said teasingly. 

“You know very well, Adrien Agreste,” Marinette retorted. For a moment, the Chat’s eyes flashed. 

“Adrien? Who’s that?” he said carelessly. Unable to tell if he was joking, Marinette rolled her eyes. 

“Whatever. Look, Chat, do you know where Monsieur Agreste is?” Then, in case he was going to pretend to not know who that was either, she added, “That’s the man who lives in this house.”

It was then that she wondered – had the Chat been here _all week_ , unable to transform back into Adrien? And if so, wouldn’t Monsieur Agreste have noticed? Oh no… How could this situation get any worse?

“Him? No idea,” Chat Noir said. Throughout the conversation his eyes had remained flat and implacable, with a gentle gleam. Now, as he spoke, he flashed her a little cold grin, which might have been playful on him normally, but now was just unsettling. Now that smile remained hovering on his lips in wait, so that every time he spoke his lips curved up and in secret internal laughter. It was creepy. 

“Chat…” Marinette started, anxiety coiling in her gut. She couldn’t bring herself to ask directly, so she said, “Did he see you? As Chat Noir?”

The Chat put his finger to his chin thoughtfully. “Mm… Pawsibly. Sorry, my Lady.” Marinette couldn’t tell if he was apologising for the pun or for the fact that he had been seen. 

“Did he… get mad at you?”

“Oh, ol’ Gabriel Agreste, he gets mad about most anything I do,” the Chat said airily. 

_You can’t make this easy for me, can you, Chat?_ Marinette thought. “Did you… did something happen?” What Marinette really wanted to ask was, _Did you fight him_. It was ridiculous to think of Chat Noir fighting a grown civilian – and his own father at that! – but with the Chat in this condition, anything was possible. And Marinette had a very bad feeling that something here was terribly, terribly wrong. If only she could put her finger on it. 

“Define “something”,” Chat Noir replied. 

This was going nowhere. 

“Okay, kitty,” Marinette said, taking a slow step towards him, intending to get the Miraculous off of him so she could fix it. Instantly, Chat Noir’s ears perked up. 

“Ladybug! You want to play?” he said, taking a step back, creepy grin splitting into a full-on Cheshire-Cat creepy smile. 

“No,” Marinette said emphatically. 

“You do?”

“No!”

Chat Noir laughed. Then he took off running. 

Instantly, Marinette grabbed her yoyo from her hip and threw it after him, but he nimbly dodged the entangling wires, rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, and disappeared. 

“Zut alors!” Marinette said, instantly grabbing her yoyo and dashing after him. If it hadn’t already been evident that Chat Noir was Adrien, it now became obvious – only someone who lived in this house would know it well enough to give Marinette the slip in such a confined space. He slid down the banister, not even bothering with the stairs, and though Marinette threw her yoyo twice, she only succeeded in hitting herself in the face on the rebound as Chat disappeared into the kitchen. There she tried to grab him across the kitchen island, but once again failed. Laughing, Chat Noir tripped Marinette up with a rolling pin and headed right back up the stairs. Marinette chased him through the whole house, dodging various knickknacks that he threw her way, until she finally lost him on the third floor of the house.

Hunching over, Marinette put her hands on her knees and tried to take a breath. In the stillness, she heard a quiet giggle. She looked from side to side, but the walls on both sides were blank and seamless, without so much as a lamp to provide a hiding space. But she had sworn she heard…

Swinging her yoyo from side to side, Marinette let it bounce off one wall, then the other. As she advanced down the hallway, she listened hard for the knock of the yoyo against wood, but then – there was an echo. Did Chat’s house have a secret door in it? Just to be sure, Marinette let the yoyo ring out one more time. There! Drawing one back foot, Marinette gave a mighty kick, slamming open the hidden door just in time to see Chat’s tail disappear up a flight of stairs. Marinette threw herself after him, finding herself suddenly in a tiny hallway, barely the size of her patio at home, with Chat facing off against her from the other end. 

Throwing her yoyo towards Chat’s head, Marinette dove. Distracted by the yoyo, Chat didn’t see her coming. With an ‘oof’ they collided, Marinette slamming her hands down on either side of Chat’s head, caging him against the wall with her body. The chase was finally over. Chat wriggled, and Marinette braced one forearm around his neck. 

“Don’t even think about it,” she said, panting furiously from the exertion of chasing him around the house. Chat glanced to their right, then back to her, looking like a deer in headlights with his eyes blown wide. Well, he should be looking like that. Marinette could cut off his airway at any time, not that she would do a thing like that. Even if Chat was acting like he had been replaced by some kind of demented Copy Cat. 

This close to Chat’s face, it was even more obvious how… not right he was. His lips were pressed shut in a thin line, while he twitched nervously and glanced from side to side, always first to the right. He was pale, and his green eyes were bloodshot. His cracked Miraculous was glowing a deep, ruby red instead of its familiar green. And he wasn’t saying anything. Oh, how that worried her. Marinette would have given anything to hear one single cat pun. But there was nothing. 

“Give me your Miraculous,” Marinette said. Chat shook his head. Again his eyes flicked to the right. 

Just what was so interesting over there? Marinette turned her head to look, but all she could see was a closed door – and not a hidden one, this time. 

“What’s that?” Marinette said, narrowing her eyes. Chat gulped. 

“That? Why, that’s nothing, nothing at all, My Lady. Why don’t we go back downstairs like nice good friends and I’ll give you my ring. You would like that, right, my little ladybug?”

Marinette ignored him and reached for the handle of the door. 

“Don’t!” Chat Noir cried, but it was too late. The door clicked open, Marinette glanced inside, and – 

Oh, god. There was _blood_. 

Chat Noir slammed the door shut. 

“Chat…” Marinette whispered through trembling lips, “Was that Monsieur Agreste?”

She felt like she was going to throw up. Oh god, the stench of blood was permeating the entire hallway, even though the door was closed. Her knees were shaking and she could barely stand upright, even though she was clutching the wall for dear life. 

Chat spoke, and when he did, his voice took on a dark, sinister edge that chilled Marinette to her core. 

“That, my Lady, is Dark Cataclysm.”

Marinette’s Miraculous beeped. 

“You used Cataclysm on your own father?” Marinette said in a strangled whisper, her free hand coming up to cover her mouth and nose. 

“No,” Chat Noir said, eyes gleaming defiantly, “I used Cataclysm on Papillon.”

Papillon? How was Papillon here when – 

_Monsieur Agreste_. 

“Your dad was Papillon?” Marinette repeated blankly. 

“Now he’s not anything,” said Chat Noir. Marinette’s Miraculous beeped for the third time, but she didn’t understand why. It hadn’t been long enough, and she hadn’t used her lucky charm. But she couldn’t think. She felt light-headed and sick, and Adrien’s face remained impassive. 

“I just can’t believe it,” Marinette said, shakily closing her eyes. 

“He had it coming,” Chat said, and Marinette couldn’t help but remember all the times she’d seen Adrien and Monsieur Agreste together in the same room. Adrien’s dad had seemed so intimidating and cold. And now he was Papillon, and now he was dead. 

Maybe she should have seen it coming. Maybe she could have stopped this. Maybe this was just a nightmare she would wake up from tomorrow, _Que Dieu ait pitié_ …

“What are you going to do to me?” Chat Noir said quietly. 

“Adrien, listen,” Marinette pleaded, at the end of her strength. “Just give me your Miraculous. Something’s wrong with it, and we have to fix it. Just let me help you. Even if Monsieur Agreste is d-dead, I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.”

Chat considered for a moment, tilting his head back and putting his finger on his chin in a theatrical pose. For a moment, Marinette could have sworn that his eyes were gleaming with madness. Her Miraculous beeped again. 

“For you, My Lady,” Adrien said, and then he took off his ring.

**Author's Note:**

> So I've never really written a creepy story before, and I lost interest in this one partway through but... it's done? Yay? 
> 
> Basically answers the question "What would happen if Cataclysm were used on a person" and also "Why won't that asshole Papillon die"
> 
> Last language note - "Que Dieu ait pitié" means "May God have mercy." (More accurately: May God take pity on us)


End file.
